They said their goodbyes to the new generations and wondered how many of them they would see again. Everybody was growing older except for the crew of Challenger for whom time stood still. Yet even they felt they were maturing faster than unsual with the sight of old age and death all around them. Completing their mission with the certainty of death now seemed of prime importance.
Their next warp saw them working hard on perfecting their plans for destruction of the aliens, for which accurate timing was essential. Ogden, ever cautious, was for bring them out of warp early because if they overshot their target they may arrive late to to little left of the Earth they knew. Ramirez was all in favour of the gung ho approach, hitting them as fast as possible.
Stiers said, “Ogden is right. We dare not overshoot. We will slow gradually this time and attempt to exit warp with three weeks to go till contact with the enemy.”
They lowered their rate to eighty per cent and held it there. But there was a build-up of trouble for them and it lie immediately ahead.
“Down by five per cent,” said Stiers.
“No response,” said Ogden.
“What?”
“We’re not slowing,” said Ogden.
“Professor – urgent,” said the Captain.
“I’m working on it,” said Lillishenger.
“What’s the problem?”
“Dome is intact and holding,” said Gowan.
“It’s the weapons system,” said Ramirez. “It’s causing bleeding from the engines.”
“Darn. Is it a quick fix?” asked Stiers.
“A fractured pipe.” Ramirez stood up. “I can’t fix it from here. I’ll have to go below.”
“Suit up,” said the Captain.
“No time,” said Ramirez. “Let’s just hope it isn’t too bad.”
He was already on his way below decks where the equipment kits were stored to work on the engines and weapons. Ogden said, “I’ll help him.”
“Stay that,” said the Captain. “Two people down there will just get in each other’s way. Stay here till he reports.”
They watched their screens switched to Ramirez’s suit camera as he crawled through the tight spaces. He located a faulty valve and knew they could not replace it at this stage. He used a key to close it manually, shutting off supply to the weapons. Radioactive shit covered his right hand but he pressed on.
“We’re going too fast,” warned Lillishenger.
“I can see that, Professor.”
“We can go too far too fast.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“We’re slowing again,” said Ogden.
“Slow to seventy per cent,” instructed Stiers. “We dare not overshoot. Check with the chronometers and link in the main computer.”
“Computer is slowing us to sixty per cent,” said Ogden.
“Are we going to overshoot?” asked Gowan.
“It’s touch and go,” said Ogden.
“Indications are we will stop with three days before contact with the aliens,” said Lillishenger.
“And we have repairs to complete,” said Ogden.
“We’ll manage,” said the Captain. “How is Ramirez doing?”
“He is on his way back now,” said Gowan who had been monitoring his progress.
Ramirez reappeared on the bridge and headed straight for medical, his hand limp and useless. Lillishenger stood up and went to him. “Take your top off and lie down,” she instructed.
“I bet you’d complain if I said that to you,” said Ramirez but it was obvious he was in great pain.
“I’ll try to repair the hand but I am preparing a replacement in case.”
“No good, Prof. I need it to coordinate and fire the weapons.”
“Shut up, Ramirez. We all know you’re a hero. Let me scan this.”
She used the equipment to perform through scans of his arm. The scanning numbed the painful fingers and wrist and Ramirez relaxed and breathed easily. She took scans of his other hand while she was working and finally decided the hand could be saved with some careful work on the skin. Ramirez, as is the reputation with medics, made the worst patient, continually declaring he was fine. When the operation was over he knew he had to rest that hand and it was touch and go whether or not it would be fighting fit when they met the aliens for the final time.
Ramirez was sensible enough to keep his hand mildly exercised, flexing the fingers occasionally. Gowan said, “Poor boy. You won’t be able to play with yourself for a while.”
“I have my left hand.”
“You’re right-handed. It won’t be the same.”
“What do you think I should do then?”
She smiled. “Better let me go on top,” she whispered.
“I can do that,” he agreed.
Two days later, running sub-warp for safety, they touched down on their base. They were late for the time and day they had given Sean. But when they exited the chamber into bright sunshine, they could see the equipment ready and waiting to dismantle the chamber which had been their home for most of the past century. Hugh Junior, now much older, and his father were waiting anxiously and were relieved to see them. They were full of talk about the aliens and Fleet and how everything the crew had told them had come true.
“Can we start dismantling?” asked Hugh Junior.
“Go ahead. Please don’t damage the ship. We have to shut off the engines and do immediate repairs,” said the Captain.
The great door were unwelded and slid open on the freshly greased and serviced runners. Then a crew of half a dozen men and women began to dismantle the dome. “No need for secrect now,” said Sean. He was now 98 but looked well despite a slight stoop.
“Modern medicine,” said Ramirez.
“His boy looks so much like his granddad,” said Gowan. “It’s uncanny.”
“You’ll be wanting some food,” said Sean. “And what passes for coffee now.”
“Yes,” said Stiers. “Then we have urgent repairs to make to the ship.”
“The rest of fleet is out there waiting to tackle the enemy.”
“So are we,” said the Captain. “And we’re here also with an invitation to join in at the last minute with a surprise for that huge ship.”
With so little time to lose, they ate and drank quickly and returned to the ship. Already much of the dome was down and Challenger showing to the outside world for the first time in a century. The valve was pulled down and rebuilt with new seals, refitted and tested. Sean made it out to see them.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen the ship in daylight,” he said. “It is a large beast.”
“How is your sister?” asked the Professor.
“Sue? Sue died many years ago. Didn’t you know?”
“No,” said Lillishenger. “We didn’t know.”
“I lost my younger son also. Frank died in an accident while driving.”
“So Hugh is now your only son?”
“Yes. Jenny’s boy Eric is in town shopping for us. He’ll be back soon. He brought his entire family with him. There’s him, his wife, two sons, two daughters and three grandchildren.”
“And they are all here?”
“They’re here to see you off and wish you luck. Frankly what we hear about the aliens seems terrifying.”
“It seems water is a valuable commodity around the universe and they would like ours,” said Ogden. “Their ship is immense – a huge water carrier with a small crew. It seems they want to sift our seas for heavy water although we know nothing for certain.”
“I’m an old man now,” said Sean. “I have had long waits for your visits.”
“And from where we stand, you have grown from a small boy into that old man in just a few weeks,” said Ramirez. “It is a struggle for us to comprehend you are actually living full lives out here.”
“Well, we’re synchronised now I guess,” he said and hobbled away.
“What a crime, double time,” said Ramirez after Sean had gone. “We’
re back where we started and the aliens are still waiting for us.”
The remanufactured valve blew out under test and Ramirez blamed a lack of raw materials. They hunted through the now tidy yard for any bits and pieces they could feed into the printer. There was enough scrap for them to load into the machine for processing and they made a second valve. This one functioned well under test.
They modified the gel packs containing super Sarin and added nanobots into the gel mixture which were programmed to eat their way through metal, plastic and any wiring or circuit boards they found. The crew hoped these would, when dispersed inside the bridge, attack the alien equipment and cause damage. Anything that prevented the bugs from shooting back at them.
With everything tested, time was now very short. When Eric returned, now a very old man looked after by his children and adored by his grandkids, they caught up, promising to visit his mother’s grave if they ever returned from the mission ahead. Generations of what they considered to be their family now watched and chatted.
“What will you do with the chamber?” asked Stiers.
“We plan to reassemble it and charge for visits,” said Eric.
“If you’re successful,” qualified his granddaughter, a golden-haired, dusky skinned girl of eleven.
“Think we can’t do this?” challenged Ramirez.
“Are you the one my granpa is named after?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look anything like him.”
“I’m whiter than he is…”
“But he’s old and you’re young. Surely you were named after him?”
“I knew his mom – your great grandmother.”
“I never knew her.”
“No,” said Ramirez. “She died.”
The girl pointed to the deconstruction taking place. “So you were in there for years and years.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you take my great gran with you?”
“Because if we had you would never have been born.”
“Would she still be young?”
“Yes.”
Gowan took the girl’s hands in her own and smiled at her. “We’ve only been away from contact for a few months. Life had had to continue here. Without your great gran, your granddad and your own parents, we could never have succeeded. If we do manage to stop the invasion, they will be the ones to be honoured for their dedication to our cause in a completely different time.”
“Are you all very rich.”
“Whatever we have, we’re much the richer for having all of you around us.”
That seemed to satisfy the girl and she smiled and took her grandpa’s hand. Ogden came up the Captain. “We’re all set and we are running out of time,” he said. “We really must leave.”
“Without a dry run through?”
“I’m afraid so, Captain.”
“We’ll be back,” said Stiers.
Ramirez raised his eyebrows and looked at Gowan. “Do you reckon he still believes that twaddle?” he whispered.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Challenger was readied for what Ramirez still felt would be its final mission. Without saying anything, the others privately shared that thought. The task and timing would have to be so precise they spent ages aligning and rechecking the chronometers. It would take them four hours at high speed to reach the alien ship when it appeared. Ramirez fussed over the weapons systems and engines while Ogden and Lillishenger saw to the loading of the gel packs. Gowan ran electronic checks and ensured the holos were all working and no damage had been done on the voyage. Stiers sat and pondered imponderables and worried about most everything. If they had returned with sufficient time to spare he would have allowed everybody to visit their folks. He missed his own family – barely a couple of states away – yet there was pressure to perform out there in the Black Desert.
Most of their new family were there to wish them luck – the first generation who had not had to take them on faith. These people knew what they must attempt. Stiers took control when the crew were all aboard and the ship glided out above the dirt onto the edge of a new metropolis growing out here as Holmgrove continued to expand. The craft attracted lots of visitors who had seen them in the news and even worked on parts of them; but here was the finished article in the flesh for whatever reason.
Inside Stiers took the craft rising quickly into the higher atmosphere, leaving behind an assortment of wellwishers and the curious and four generations of those who had assisted them, some of whom were still alive.
“Course set,” Ogden told him.
“Weapons ready,” said Ramirez.
“All circuits charging,” said Lillishenger.
“I took food from the house for lunch,” said Gowan. “For if we make it.”
“We’ll make it,” said the Captain.
“Did God tell you that?” asked Ramirez.
“I plan for us all to see our families again,” said Stiers. “Including me.”
“We need to maintain this course and speed for 3.6 hours,” said Ogden. “Then we will alter direction very slightly and go to full speed.”
“I concur,” said Gowan.
“Feed that into the computers and switch everything over to automatic. We’ll have a weapons check in two hours.”
They were out of Earth’s atmosphere and heading rapidly for the moon. Apart from the weapons test, the next few hours would be full of suspense and the agony of just waiting helplessly.
“How’s that new valve holding, Ramirez?” asked the Captain.
“Tighter than a virgin’s pussy.”
“I think ‘tight’ would have been good enough.”
“Okay, tight as a virgin’s pussy.”
Stiers sighed and focussed on his readouts, waiting for something to break or give way, or for a meteor strike or some other catastrophe. Maybe he would just have a heart attack.
Two hours later they had a dummy run with the weapons firing empty gel-packs into space at imaginery holes made by the disruptors.
“All working perfectly,” said Ramirez.
“I’m just waiting for something to go wrong,” said the Captain.
“I had to flush the toilet twice,” said Gowan. “Maybe that was it.”
“Let’s hope so.”
A little later the computer drove up the engines and the ship increased to maximum speed as it used the recordings to determine the precise point and time when the alien ship decloaked. All the viewscreens were active as they sped into the night away from Earth and the Moon.
Gowan said, “The computers are making minute adjustments.”
“There’s a ship ahead,” said Ramirez.
“The aliens?” asked the Captain.
“No, sir. It’s a Fleet ship. According to the transponder – it’s us.”
“That makes sense,” said Ogden. “We must be the ship we saw as the aliens decloaked and enforced their shields.”
“Does that even make sense?” asked Ramirez.
Then the darkness shimmered before them and they passed through the cloaking field as the gigantic vessel put its shields into place. Stiers slowed the craft and turned towards the bridge area. Around them, barely sixty metres away, the shields coalesced and glowed brightly like a false dawn.
“Now we’re trapped,” said Stiers. “We’ll never shoot our way through that field.”
“Look on the bright side, Skipper,” said Ramirez. “They can’t shoot at us either.”
“I doubt they’re worried about us,” said Ogden. “We’re just a tick on their back.”
“I am getting more readings on the ship,” said Lillishenger. “They have torpedoes and they have small portholes in their screens which can be opened for their guns to fire.”
“But they can’t shoot at us?”
“No, Captain.”
“Then let’s see if we can give them a nasty bite.”
Using their scanning information and what they knew they programmed the computers to take them to
a point where the disrupters could hit the mist inlet junction so hastily adapted on the big ship.
“Keep away from the shields,” instructed Ogden. “They are powerful enough to fry all our electrics if we touch them.”
“We’ve got this far, people,” said Stiers. “We may not get away but we can save Earth if we keep our senses.”
The vessel, so large on Earth and so tiny next to the alien ship, manoeuvred into place until its guns were pointing at their target.
“Should we give them a chance to surrender?” asked Ogden.
“What? And delay shooting till after they stop laughing?” said the Captain.
Are we actually at war?”
Stiers turned and faced them all. “Yes, this is war,” he said. “I would rather be at home enjoying my kids, my wife and my ranch. I don’t want to be here making these decisions but as a former pilot I volunteered to protect Earth. You have all done the same. Maybe they want our water, maybe they just want us to be subvervient to them, but their actions so far have been hostile. I don’t plan to give any warnings before we shoot.”
It was a long speech for the Captain and was interrupted by Ramirez shouting, “They are arming forward torpedoes, Captain. It looks like they are targeting Fleet and the flagship.”
“That enough for you, Ogden?” asked the Captain.
“This is the sound of me shutting my mouth,” said the Englishman.
“They are raising some kind of laser gun platform,” said Lillishenger. “If we drop four metres and aim our guns again, we should be below their dipping range.”
She fed the information into the computers which realigned the vessel. Ramirez said, “I doubt they’ll shoot at us. Too much chance of putting their own shields out of action.”
“Gowan said, “They are launching torpedoes.”
“Confirmed,” said Ramirez. “At least ten streaking away towards Fleet.”
“Aim our weapons,” said Stiers.
“Weapons aimed and on target,” said Ramirez.
“Have computers hold us in this position relevant to alien ship movement.”
“Fed in and logged,” said Ogden.
“Fire first shot.”
“Done,” said Ramirez and they watched the viewscreens as debris from the join where the misting pipe met the hull by the bridge flew off. The almost immediate second shot sealed the hole.
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